I gape at her. Annika is helping me escape?
“Quickly! Before I change my mind,” she hisses.
I rush down the last steps, accepting the material. A wool cloak, I realize, draping it over my shoulders.
She peeks out the door. “Keep your head down, do not speak, and if you try to run, I will scream.” She spears me with a warning look before she draws her hood over her hair. I follow suit, and then she’s leading me into the night. We turn left almost immediately, avoiding the square. Her pace is swift as she weaves along a maze of narrow corridors and paths. I focus on the swirling hemline of her cloak and nothing else, counting my steps and attempting to track the changing direction. It’s habit, though I know in this case, I’ll never be able to retrace the path.
The whole time, I’m anxious that she’s leading me into another trap, but I don’t have any other choice. Staying in the tower is a guaranteed death sentence. Trusting her offers me a shred of hope.
Before long, we’re darting down steep stairs and through a long passageway, just wide enough for single file, the ceiling inches from my head. She carries a lantern she collected on the way in. It’s the only source of light.
“We should be safe down here at this late hour.” They’re the first words she’s spoken since we left the tower.
“Where are we?” I dare ask.
“Beneath the castle.” She opens another door and pauses to peek around before passing through. “It’s far safer than going through it and taking the streets is too dangerous. Every guard in Cirilea is out tonight and on high alert.”
“The undercroft,” I murmur more to myself, gaping at the mammoth, endless cavern of vaulted ceilings and massive pillars that makes Sofie’s castle look like a hovel. Annika’s hurried footsteps echo; mine make no sound. One positive of being barefoot, though I wince at the cuts and scrapes accumulating quickly.
“Mother insisted we not take you down here until we were sure we could trust you. She didn’t want you knowing the ins and outs of this place, of how to move about unseen. Zander thought she was being unreasonably distrustful, but he complied.” Her voice hardens. “It turns out she was right to be cautious, though it didn’t make any difference in the end, did it?”
Because apparently, I was at the wheel of a murderous uprising.
“Why are you helping me?” I blurt.
“I owe you a life, do I not?”
“But … you think I killed your parents. I didn’t, by the way.”
“Zander mentioned your continued and adamant refusal on that matter. Though we have sufficient evidence to prove otherwise.” She sounds so detached, only hours after her parents were poisoned. At least Zander is passionate over their loss. But maybe she’s still in shock. It doesn’t seem like her day has gone much better than mine. “A great many things do not make sense right now, beginning with why you would save me from the river when it is quite clear you wanted us all dead. The truth is, I’m not doing this for you. I despise you. I’m doing this for Islor, and for Zander.” She worries her pouty bottom lip. “He ended up caring for you far more than he ever expected to when the marriage was arranged.”
My marriage to Zander was arranged?
“You fooled him. You fooled all of us, even though I never cared much for you to begin with. But my brother is not thinking clearly, and I fear having you condemned to death will hurt him more than he realizes. Even if you deserve it.” She shakes her head. “I cannot explain this overwhelming sense of foreboding, but I am choosing to listen to it.”
The corridor splits off in two directions; she heads to the right. “This way. We must hurry. Boaz will be sounding the alarm at any moment.”
“Aren’t you going to get in a ton of trouble for helping me?” What is the punishment for breaking out a woman sentenced to die for murdering a king and queen?
“I am the princess of Islor. Boaz cannot punish me,” she scoffs.
“And what about Zander?”
“I know how to deal with my brother.” The worried look on her face betrays her bluster. Whatever she’ll earn for this, it won’t be pleasant.
I follow her up a narrow staircase. She draws her cloak over her lantern and then eases open the door. We’re back outside, this time in the shadows, surrounded by branches. The smell of cedar fills my nostrils.
“Are we in—”
She covers my mouth with her palm. We stay frozen like that, listening as a clink of metal sounds to my left. Must be a guard nearby. Elsewhere, shouts are rising. I assume Boaz knows I’ve escaped by now and is anxious to put another arrow through my heart. Still preferential to what they have planned for me.
Annika uncovers my mouth. Together, we creep forward through the covert cedar tunnel as soundlessly as possible, every snap of a twig and rustle of a branch stealing breaths from my lungs. We must be in the same garden I found myself in earlier, though nothing is visible from within these cedar walls.
We reach the end, and Annika uncovers her lantern. She guides me down a set of steps and then along another passageway made of stone, this one smelling of earth and mildew. It’s so narrow, I doubt most soldiers could maneuver through, at least not wearing their armor. It was likely built for civilians needing to flee. In some spots, I have to stoop to pass.
“Are we still under the castle?” I ask.
“No. We’re passing beneath the curtain wall. I cannot get you out of the city tonight, so I’m taking you to the sanctum where you will seek protection until I can reason with my brother. It’s the only safe place for you within Cirilea. Perhaps in all of Islor.”
“You think you can do that? Reason with him?” Maybe I can slip out on my own once I have my bearings. This wouldn’t be the first city I’ve slinked around, though it’s certainly the first where I’d be hunted by an army.
“It’s worth trying. My brother is now king, and there are a great many things expected of him. Hopefully he can learn to make decisions based on his head and not his heart.”
Because apparently, I broke the latter.
Just recalling the pained look in his eyes brings a swell of pity to my chest.
Annika’s shoes scuff along the stone floor with her rushed steps. “How did you break me free of the merth? It was in its raw form, and your hands were bare.”
I remember her using that same word down by the river. She must be talking about the silver rope. “It fell apart.”
“Raw merth feels like a thousand razor blades slicing across your skin while it subdues you, rendering you utterly immobile. It does not simply fall apart beneath your touch.” Under her breath, she adds, “That does not make any sense.”
“The story of my life at the moment.” People don’t wake up in a strange, primitive country with an army chasing them after a crazed woman drives a sharp object through their chest, and yet here I am.
“You are different from before. The way you speak, the odd things you say …”
“I’ve been trying to tell you guys.” Maybe if they start picking up on how poorly I fit into this medieval cosplay, they’ll stop insisting on killing me.
We meet yet another set of stairs, but it leads to nothing. “I suppose you would seem different, though. This is the real Romeria, is it not? The version we saw before was the farce, the one to win us over.”